Against the Grain: RBC Heritage Classic

As part of our unparalleled and unique content, we bring a little Game Theory Analysis (GTA) titled “Against the Grain”. If you compete in any type of fantasy, let alone fantasy golf, you know that using “game theory” to your advantage can help create that edge. Game theory is quite broadly defined and can be applied in so many ways, but for this article I’m going to give everyone some ideas to use in their “free” fantasy play contests for the upcoming weekend. Utilizing game theory can be something as simple as not playing, or “fading” a top owned guy, or picking a guy that very few people might pick.

Recap of Last Week’s Article: The most glaring piece ATG covered was the pivot off of Hatton to Pieters. If you did that you must have had a great week! It also covered Justin Rose and Paul Casey to round out three people in the top six picked.

DraftKings: This week,Tour Level is offering a set of free contests on DraftKings! Starting next week you’ll get chances to compete to win free Tour Level swag!

$10,000 & Above: Four golfers fit this category:

So a rather weak field this week in Harbour Town, giving us 4 golfers normally priced in the 7k to 8k range priced above 10k. The ownership this week will be spread out among the four, so going overweight on one should give you a pretty good variance against the field.

Projections:

Highest Owned: Grace- 26%

Lowest Owned: Henley – <17%

GTA: With the expected ownership to be pretty evenly spread among the four, you really could get away with over-weighing-ting one of them. However, as first reported by the Edge, Snedeker’s hand injury, which was evident in Augusta this weekend, will require further treatment come Monday after the RBC. If you don’t already know, Brandt is part of the RBC team hence why he may have to, or feel the need to, compete in this tourney. If you’re looking to overweight a top guy, Kuchar and Grace seem to be safer options.

The Top Play: Henley checks in as our least favorite option as he has some bad history after making the weekend at Augusta, and his performance here the week after. A recent win at the Shell and a great showing at Augusta may lead Russell to check out mentally and look forward to a little time off.

$9,999-$8,000: 17 golfers fit this category:

A bunch of Masters competitors in this price category. Both golfers that missed the cut, and also some with pretty high finishes, so it’ll be interesting to see how the ownership breaks out, especially with crowd favorite Ty Hatton. He came in at almost 30% last week and MC which I’m sure hurt a good amount of lineups. Will people go back to him after that? We think they well.

Projections:

Highest Owned: Ty Hatton: 23%

Lowest Owned: Molinari: 5%

GTA: The Augusta narrative will be in full effect in this price category. As noted above we believe that Hatton comes in at the highest owned in the category. Martin Kaymer played the best Sunday at Augusta out of everyone in this range, and I believe that makes him the most vulnerable here. Of course the other side of that is he totally found something and could carry into this week. We know he has top level game , so if he gets hot he could win. Marc Leishman checks into the RBC with a bad back as reported by the Edge, so be weary of that. A Kevin Na/Molinari/Dechambeau stack could prove to be very low owned, with very high upside.

The Top Play:When Pat Perez gets to this price against a field like this, he starts to present amazing value. He had a good week at Augusta for his first time back in a couple years, and we expect the game to remain strong here at Hilton Head.

$7999-$7000: 39 golfers fit this category.

A slew of hot golfers and past winners of the event fill this price category. 3 time winner and Ryder Cup Captain Jim Furyk heads the list as he comes back to a place where he has won more money than any other golfer with over 4 million in career earnings at this one event!

Projections

Highest Owned: Danny Willet – 15%

Lowest Owned: Baddeley- 3%

GTA: Well, for the second week in a row we have OWGR problem. 17th in the world, Danny Willet, checks into Harbour Town on a cold streak. His game actually looked pretty decent in the first round of the Masters carding 2 eagles! A rough start on 1 in round 2 after shanking one into the crowd with his second shot, Willet ended up with a quad on the hole, and never recovered. Streaking Rafeal Campos checks in at 7,100 this week and with Willett priced there will go completely overlooked. Wes Bryan has publicly come out and said that this is his favorite week of the year, and with a golf course that mandates innovation and shot shaping, this may be a good fit for him to contend for another top 10.

The Top Play: Aaron Baddeley had an incredible SHO hitting the golf ball, but unlike Bads, putted very poorly. Thus setting up for a possible high finish here, and with the ownership expected to be very low, this might be a great chance to get a ton of field variance. In addition to Bads, the #LoC (legend of Cantlay) also resides, and hitting over 75% of his greens this year, seems to be a fit for this course.

6999 and Below-72 golfers fit this category.

The “go big or go home” section, this week places double the amount of golfers than what we had last week. To win the free play you’ll need to find the top 10 guy that no one else owns, and normally that comes from this price category. Let’s do some digging.

Projections:

Highest Owned:Cam Smith- 10%

Lowest Owned: Most guys in this category will be below 5% owned

GTA: This is where we believe the Edge and Tour Level can really provide some great actionable info. With almost the entire range coming in very low owned identifying players that could have a great week will provide to be a great asset. Therefore, the only GTA we can give here is lower that salary cap min and fill it with a few of these golfers.

The Top Play: Matt Every checks in with some of his best form, making 2 of the last 3 cuts, he’s seen in a quite a while. He changed coaches a few weeks back, and also went on “No Laying Up’s” podcast, and since then we’ve seen a bit of a rejuvenation in his game. He has some great history here placing in the top 20 3/4 starts.

Next week we bring you a full slate of Tour Level information as our product and site will finally be ready to go. Check back throughout the week on our Twitters @dfsjimme @dfsgolfer23 and @pgaedge. We will also be doing a periscope on Tuesday night and a podcast this week so be on the lookout for that! Good luck in your free-play games this weekend!